Extreme snow sports wins and fails

Christmas is two weeks away, and the golf offseason has finally arrived … right in the middle of the 2017-18 PGA Tour season. I don’t really understand it, but I’m going to enjoy it because golf cranks up again just a few weeks after Christmas with the two-tournament Hawaii swing, and then we’re off on our nine-month journey. There is, of course, all kinds of intrigue going into the 2018 calendar year. There already was before Tiger Woods started swinging his driver like he was Tony Finau down in the Bahamas two weeks ago, and now that intrigue has been

OKC’s George: Pacers’ success brings ‘closure’

3:01 PM ET INDIANAPOLIS — As he returns to Indianapolis to play in the arena he called home for his first seven NBA seasons, Oklahoma City Thunder forward Paul George said Wednesday that he has regrets about how things ended with the Pacers. But he also has closure. “I think both sides — myself and the front office — would definitely like to have handled things better,” George said. “I for sure will take ownership on that. But I have no regrets on the outcome.” George declined to say specifically what those regrets are. “I know what I would’ve changed,”

When a golf course burns: How a club rose from the ashes to help revitalize the town around it

Rising from the ashes: How a golf club that burned to the ground helped revitalize the town around it | Golf.comlogo-golflogo-golfSI-icon-searchSI-icon-searchCloseDownDownDownDownDownDownlogo-golf Rising from the ashes: How a golf club that burned to the ground helped revitalize the town around it SOURCE: GoogleNews

Rising from the ashes: How a golf club that burned to the ground helped revitalize the town around it

Rising from the ashes: How a golf club that burned to the ground helped revitalize the town around it | Golf.comlogo-golflogo-golfSI-icon-searchSI-icon-searchCloseDownDownDownDownDownDownlogo-golf Rising from the ashes: How a golf club that burned to the ground helped revitalize the town around it SOURCE: GoogleNews

5 reasons why extreme sports on Mars will be out of this world

Date: 2017-12-12 20:30:00 5 reasons why extreme sports on Mars will be out of this world video 5 reasons why extreme sports on Mars will be out of this world all video 5 reasons why extreme sports on Mars will be out…

‘Don’t let him shoot it!’ Inside Harden’s terrifying trick

8:58 AM ET HOUSTON — “By yourself! By yourself!” Cleveland Cavaliers coach Ty Lue hollers from the bench after a ball screen set at the top of the arc prompts power forward Jeff Green to switch onto James Harden, the Houston Rockets superstar who considers seeing a bigger defender alone in space “probably one of the best feelings in the world.” The game got close for the Houston Rockets, but the greatness of James Harden and Chris Paul held up in Portland. Ryan Anderson was one point shy of matching his season high, while Chris Paul nearly had a triple-double

The downside of modernizing the Rules of Golf

For the better part of the last decade, officials at the USGA and R&A have offered a simple refrain to anyone professing difficulty understanding the nuances of the Rules of Golf. Be patient, they insisted. Relief is on the way. This promise, at last, is close to being fulfilled. In March, the governing bodies jointly revealed their first pass at a “modernized” Rules book that tackled several of the game’s most complex, confusing and confounding capstones. Having solicited feedback from the golf community, officials from the two groups are currently in the throes of crafting the final text (sources say

Superintendent seeks revenge at Sun City golf tournament

Each December, Sun City golfers take on one of the most fun and most challenging games of the year during the annual Superintendent’s Revenge. From maneuvering around giant inflatables to putting with a hockey stick, residents faced a new obstacle at every hole during the tournament held at Argent Lakes and Okatie Creek golf courses Dec. 5. The annual tournament, now in its sixth year, is an opportunity for residents to not only have fun, but to give back to the community as well. Each player brought at least one new, unwrapped toy or book donation for Bluffton Self Help.

LeBron praises Lonzo, sees first-year parallels

3:02 AM ET CLEVELAND — LeBron James sat in front of his locker Tuesday night following the Cavaliers‘ 123-114 win over the Atlanta Hawks, a game in which he tied his career high in assists with 17, but he wasn’t ready to talk about his team’s 15th victory in its past 16 games. A television stationed across the locker room from James showed the Los Angeles Lakers battling the New York Knicks in overtime. James was going to watch the finish to the Knicks’ 113-109 win over the Cavs’ next opponent — the Lakers and their lightning-rod rookie, Lonzo Ball

Lack of fans, sponsors force FC Edmonton to shut down professional operations

A decision by FC Edmonton to shut down its professional soccer operation is the direct result of lack of fans in the stands, team co-owner Tom Fath told CBC News in an interview.

And any hopes that the team might be reborn in a new Canadian league simply can’t come true if the financial picture doesn’t change.

“We would need 8,000 or 9,000 people to be sustainable, and that’s not just bums in the seats. It’s the eyeballs,” Fath said. “If you’ve got the people watching, that also captures corporate sponsorship. We’ve got some great corporate sponsors, but we never captured the heart of corporate Edmonton to the extent we needed to.”

The city’s professional soccer team announced on its website Friday morning that it was leaving the North American Soccer League (NASL) and shutting down its professional franchise operations effective immediately.

Fath said staff were told early Friday morning, and the players were due to gather for a conference phone call in the afternoon.

‘If you look back, we’ve only sold out a couple of games in our history.’– Tom Fath

FC Edmonton was one of the founding teams of the NASL in November 2009, and the only original team still involved with it. In the statement posted Friday morning on the FC Edmonton website, owners Tom and Dave Fath said they believed in and supported the league’s business model, but “our franchise has proven to be unsustainable in the Edmonton market.”

“If you look back, we’ve only sold out a couple of games in our history,” Tom Fath told CBC News. The team played at Clarke Stadium, which has a capacity of 5,000 spectators.

“We needed to fill the stadium regularly to create the demand to build a bigger stadium to carry … the costs that we had in the NASL, and the travel, and everything else.”

The team’s lack of success on the field didn’t help matters, but a bigger issue was the lack of “close rivals,” Fath said. “Is it relevant if we are playing someone from the south of the United States?”

FC Edmonton played its first official league match in April 2011 and more than 200 league games since. Twice in its seven years, it made it through to the post-season.

The decision to pull the plug on the team was reinforced by the continuing uncertainly around the league’s future, with an ongoing court battle involving the NASL and the U.S. Soccer Federation. The league had been seeking an injunction to regain its Division 2 designation.

Without Division 2 status, the league may not operate in the 2018 season, which would have left FC Edmonton without a league to play in.

The league’s assistant commissioner, Rishi Sehgal, said the NASL is still planning for a 2018 season and remains confident ahead of an appeal hearing set for Dec. 15.

Sehgal was quick to thank the FC Edmonton ownership team for its longtime support of the league.

“We are very appreciative of FC Edmonton’s contribution to the NASL as a founding member,” Sehgal said in a statement. “The club’s owner, Tom Fath, was a tremendous ambassador for the league and his genuine passion for the community did so much for the fans and the people of Edmonton.”

The San Francisco Deltas also announced they were departing the league, Sehgal added.

The statement also made a point of reaching out to the local youth soccer community involved in its development program, stating “we remain committed to our FC Edmonton Academy.”

On FC Edmonton’s Facebook page, fans expressed hope that the team would be back to play with the Canadian Premier League, a new coast-to-coast professional soccer league that could begin play as early as 2018.

“Sad news,” wrote Ian Pearson on the Facebook page. “Let’s hope we join the CPL. With Edmonton joining, it can only improve it.”

Fath said he is a big fan of the Canadian Premier League concept, noting that young elite players need to be “playing high-level games in order to transition to playing for our Canadian national team.”

But, he said, that can’t happen without fundamental changes in fan and corporate support for an Edmonton team.

“For us to look at the Canadian Premier League, we have to be able to see a path towards sustainability and that’s to have an increased commitment of attendance and an increased commitment of corporate Edmonton on sponsorship.”